Home and Farm Stay Day

Doug here now, figuring it's my time to take a stab at the blog. But I don't have an account so I'm logged in as Leigh. We're all enjoying our home stay experiences, especially the sudden availability of internet access.

We all met at the bus this morning, and the students had lots of great experiences to share from their first night at their homestay. Reports of wonderful pizza and spaghetti dinners, time spent playing with their new siblings, and unlimited Xbox live sessions filled the morning ride to the Causey Farm.

Our coach ride took about an hour and a half, passing through the towns of Navan and Kells, original home of the Book of Kells, now housed at Dublin's Trinity College. Causey Farm is a working farm in the rolling hills outside of Kells. The students were promptly greeted by Patch and Cinder, a pair of rambunctious border collies, as well as a host of puppies and kitties. We made our way over to a barn space where we participated in some traditional Irish folk dances. Luckily we all participated in the dancing, which meant no one was able to film the results. I believe Leigh snapped a picture or two though.

Impending rain sent us out to the fields next to learn the traditional Irish amateur sport of hurling. Students each got a hurley and a sliother (a little smaller than a baseball) and practiced lifting the ball off the ground with their hurleys and passing the balls down field. There were a few similarities between hitting the sliother with the hurley and hitting a baseball with a bat, so some of our baseball playing delegates started to pick it up fairly quickly. After fifteen minutes, though, everybody was getting the hang of it, and we had a competition to see who could hit the ball furthest down the field. Travis won for the boys and Capri beat all the girls. Joe and Katie were close seconds. Finally the kids broke into small groups and competed with each other. Needless to say the earlier successes didn't translate into any actual skill in playing the game, but everyone had a great time anyway. Our home stay father, Vincent, found me some hurling footage to share so everyone can see what we're talking about here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyfEyKTM2Qo&feature=related

After our time hurling we took some time to mix up some traditional Irish soda bread batter, which would be baking while we got involved in some other activities. One of those would be milking a cow. We'll just sum that one up by saying that those weren't rain drops wetting everyone's shirts. Our fearless delegation manager Ben attempted to spray some milk directly into his mouth, with mixed results. I guess he landed some in there, but not nearly as much as he got everywhere else. Getting dirty from cow's milk was the least of our worries, though, as our next activity would prove.

We rode a covered wagon to a nearby peat bog, where we learned a little about the creation and maintence of the peat bog ecosystems throughout the Republic of Ireland. But that was just the beginning. We worked our way to an obstacle course where any failures ended up with a delegate in the bog. Luckily the anaerobic environment in the peat bog means it's sterile. So it's the cleanest dirt you're likely to find. Which is a good thing, because the next thing we did was jump straight into a huge peat bog bit. It was a unique experience, to say the least. You can jump into the bog just as you'd dive into a pool, but instead of going under you get sucked about half way in and then stuck. The ambassadors were a little tentative at first, but Ben got things going when he suddenly popped out of the bog, covered with peat, surprising everyone. He had gone ahead and camouflaged himself in the bog. After tossing Sarah Mejia in, everyone else followed suit. Canonballs, jacknives, group jumps, the students tried it all. It was pretty tough getting back out of the bog, but once out virtually everyone tried and second, third, or tenth jump. I got stuck a couple of times, but luckily Travis and Andrew were there to help pull me out. Needless to say, when it was all said an done, I had peat in places I didn't even know I had. Our attempts at cleanup weren't too effective. I had to soak it out in the bath and then shower off before I could come down for dinner this evening. I've never seen the water going down the drain quite that shade of brown.

So everyone was pretty exhausted and we had a fairly quiet ride home. Students returned to their homestays for a final night in Knocklyne. We'll be leaving first thing in the morning for our trip to Bunratty Castle and points west. Everyone had a great time today, and spirits are high. We'll be spending the next two nights in Killarney, where hopefully our hotel will have a working pay phone and maybe some students will get a chance to call home and report back for themselves.

best,
Doug